NAL - Round Two - Eton
The second round of the National Athletics League Premiership saw Woodford in action at Eton on Saturday. The combined men’s and women’s team finished 3rd on the day with 499.5 points behind hosts Windsor and Shaftesbury and ahead of Trafford, Sheffield, Swansea, Southampton and Cardiff. Considering the results of the other Premiership fixture on the same day and noting that all results remain provisional at this stage, this leaves Woodford in 5th place nationally in the 16 Club Premiership after the first two fixtures. The new Open Track on-line results service continued to frustrate all, with only intermittent availability, delayed uploading of results and the almost complete lack of meaningful team scores available during the meeting which is a very significant problem for a meeting of this sort and one which the NAL must consider.
All of Woodford’s athletes on the day performed well contributing to a good all round team effort and but for a couple of unfortunate mishaps on the day, together with some last-minute unavailability and known gaps the team could have been challenging for the top spot. Conditions at Eton were not ideal, wet at first and although the sun later came out for much of the meeting the blustery winds presented significant headwinds in the home straight. Amongst many good performances there were double wins in the men’s shot (Youcef Zatat and Craig Charlton) , men’s long jump (Che Richards and Sam Khogali) men’s steeplechase (Adam Kirk-Smith and Josh Entwistle) women’s 400m (Yemi Mary John and Rebecca Grieve) and women’s 800m (Anna Clark and Louise Gilbert) additional wins for Yemi Mary John, Adam Kirk-Smith, George Vaughan, Ahmed Abdulle, Rebecca Matheson and Chiara Okereke and personal bests for Youcef Zatat, Omolulu Abiodun and debutant Joel Doye.
Youcef Zatat’s personal best came in his specialist event the shot where the UK number two improved bis best by 6cm as he recorded his win with 18.67m, edging ever closer to Emeka Udechuku’s 16-year-old Club record of 18.98m. The shot was the second of three events in which Youcef competed, the first was the discus where his 46.43m was 4th in the “A” and his 47.28m was 6th in the javelin. Craig Charlton backed up Youcef in the shot to ensure the double win as his 14.21m took the “B”. Missing specialist hammer throwers on this occasion, Craig helped out in that event also where his 29.73 placed 7th as M55 Fergus Harford was 6th in the “B” with 26.37. Backing up Youcef in the discus was Hugh Williams making an NAL debut and his 34.91m was 2nd in the “B”. In the “B” javelin another debutant Lee Lovelock was 4th with 38.00. The women throwers also gained decent points, Lucy Marshall was just off of her season’s best in the hammer where her 55.03m placed 3rd as Simbi Sikiru was 2nd in the “B” with 43.81m, having been called up late and needing to throw in borrowed shoes it was a decent performance. Simbi stood in for Chiara Okereke in the hammer who had been unwell but felt sufficiently recovered much later in the day to take on the shot where she managed to win the “A” with 11.68m as Lucy Marshall’s 9.54m was 5th in the “B”. Lucy was also in javelin action and her 21.29 was 4th in the “B”, with Precious Hamilton’s 25.30 6th in the “A”. Precious had earlier thrown in her specialist event the discus where her 42,15m was 2nd in the “B”. Emma Botham who has been in good recent form including setting a new personal best was 3rd in the “A” with 47.26m.
The long jump double win came quite early in the day where Trinidad international Che Richards just got the better of England international Sam Khogali. Che recorded 7.57m (+0.1) to take the “A” and Sam 7.34m (+1.0) the “B”. Che had a marginal foul that looked as if it would have challenged his p.b.(7.80m) and Sam’s 7.32m 3rd round might have been enough to challenge Che’s winning mark but for it being measured from behind his landing point as apparently his vest had just flicked the sand upon landing. Sam later stepped in to the ”B” high jump at short notice and his 1.71m was good enough for 3rd. In the “A”, U/20 Joba Ashiru was 4th with 1.86m but unfortunately had to miss the next two heights which moved on quickly as he ensured points in the triple jump where his 13.05m was good enough for 2nd in the “B”. In that “A” competition Tosin Oke’s 15.19m of a shortened run in the first round was good enough for second, but this proved to be his only mark as he then withdrew to protect his hamstring following the injury he picked up in the first round at Cardiff. The men’s pole vault sadly didn’t yield any points where missing specialist vaulters Ryan McKinlay again stepped in but unusually and perhaps for the first time ever he missed his opening height. Similarly, for the women the pole vault was barren with no athletes available. The other jumps did produce reasonable points however, in the first of them the long jump, Amelia MacDonald and Harriet Legg were each 8th and 7th respectively with marks of 4.98m and 4.97m. The next was the high jump and Amelia was in that event also together with debutant Jess Gordan, each cleared 1.56m with Jess placing 6th= in the “A” and Amelia 4th in the “B”. In the triple jump, Denesha Rocastle whose recent competition opportunities and training have been limited by injury was back in NAL action and her 11.21m (+1.7) was 7th in the “A” with U/17 Kharina Partridge placing a good 3rd in the “B” with 10.62m (0.0).
The track action had got underway with the 400m Hurdles and yielded good points. In the absence of Jack Lawrie who had recorded a notable personal best of 50.07 secs and a new Scottish and “domestic” Club record in Austria on Thursday evening, George Vaughan stepped into “A” string action and in the blustery conditions ran well and finished strongly recording 53.22 secs for 2nd. The “B” race was won in a time that Declan Gall would have expected to beat but unfortunately, he was affected by a recent lower back problem which saw him struggle during the race and more so afterwards as he was barely able to move for some considerable time after the race. He nevertheless managed to record 56.61 secs for 4th. George was back in action later in the 110mH and took the “B” victory into a stiff headwind with 15.40 secs (-1.7). The “A” race also faced a stiff wind and Ollie Cresswell ran well for 2nd with 14.92 secs (-1.9). The women 400m Hurdlers also picked up good points in the “A” string in far less favourable conditions, U/20, Leah Keisler was close to the recent p.b. she set in Cardiff as she placed 5th with 62.90 secs and Jasmine Mitchell was a very close 2nd in the “B” with 65.41 secs.
The women’s 800m saw a great double victory with Anna Clark finishing very strongly to take the “A” race with 2m12.29 secs and Louise Gilbert front running to a comfortable “B” victory with 2m17.41 secs. The men’s races were slow tactical affairs bit nevertheless brought decent points in the circumstances with Videsh Weerakkody acquitting himself well to place 4th in 2m02.31 secs as in the “B’ M45 (and former 1.48 man) Andy Brown nursed a dodgy hamstring around to place 5th in 2m01.38 secs. The men’s 1500m also scored well, Adam Kirk-Smith just losing out in in the final 40m, 2nd in 3m57.36, with U/20 debutant Joel Doye taking the step up in standard in his stride placing 3rd in the “B” with a personal best of 4m06.28 secs. Adam Kirk-Smith’s second in the 1500m was after he had already taken a comfortable victory in the 3000m steeplechase with 9m38.33 secs with Josh Entwistle also comfortably taking the “B” with 10m00.08 secs. After the event there was some confusion with suggestions that perhaps the athletes started from the wrong mark and run further than 3000m. The men’s flat 3000m produced a fine victory in the windy conditions for Ahmed Abdulle who finished very strongly to take the win in 8m22.42 secs with Angus Holford 2nd in the “B” with 9m05.54 secs. The other women’s m/d races lacked unavailable athletes and in the circumstances U/20 Jess Adams performed admirably picking up 7th in the “A” 3000m with 11m40.66 secs and then ensuring points were gained over 1500m with 5m22.65 secs for 8th . Sadly, unavailability meant there were no B athletes in those events, nor any for the s/ch.
Although the winds were strong and unfavourable for the sprinters there were still some good and competitive races. The men’s 100m saw U/20 Medwin Odamtten place 3rd in 11.11 secs (-5.1) into a markedly strong headwind. The “B” race was one of misfortune for Matthew Adum-Yeboah who was completely left at the start as his blocks slipped with the starter seemingly unaware and not recalling the race, Matthew had the presence of mind to complete the race and ensure points were gained where his 12.23 secs (-1.7) was 7th. Over 200m Matthew later took on the “B” race and where the headwinds were notably stronger, he placed a good 3rd with 22.40 secs (-?). The “A’ race saw U/20, Nabil Tezkratt 5th with 22.22 secs (-3.4). The 400m saw former sprint specialist Omolulu Abiodun stepping up in distance and after perhaps going off a little too hard and leading at 200m he still maintained decent form into the wind, eventually placing 4th but recording 48.20 secs, a personal best by 0.74 secs. In the “B” Paul Scanlan was 5th with 50.92 secs. The women sprinters all performed well. Rebecca Matheson was 3rd in the “A” 100m with 12.26 secs (-2.5) and then just edged the “B” 200m with 24.74 secs (-?), Gwen Datey was also 3rd in the “B” 100m with 12.35 secs (-1.9) and then a good 2nd in the “A” 200m with 24.78 secs (-?). The women’s 400m saw Yemi Mary John taking a fine victory in the “A” race judging the wind perfectly the European U/20 silver medallist finished strongly beating senior athletes with superior seasonal and personal bests, recording a good time given the conditions of 53.16 secs. Sadly, for Yemi Mary the clock erroneously stopped at 52.95 secs leading her to believe she had gone under 53 secs for the first time. The “B” race saw another U/20 (but also an U/18), Rebecca Grieve take a fine victory in 55.81 secs.
The women’s 4x100m team of Rebecca Matheson, Shona Vincent, Yemi-Mary John and Gwen Datey just lost out to Trafford but nevertheless recorded a fine 46.13 secs for 2nd . The men’s 4x100m team of Medwin Odamtten. Che Richards, Sikiru Onibango and Nabil Tezkratt placed a solid 3rd with 42.09 secs and the 4x400m squad (Nabil Tezkratt 48.8, Matthew Adum-Yeboah 49.0, Adrian Richards 51.1 secs and Omolulu Abiodun 48.6) combined for 3rd with 3m17.49 secs. The women’s 4x400m however brought about significant misfortune. After Leah Keisler (57.8 secs) and Jasmine Micthell (58.2 secs) had combined to handover in 2nd place to Yemi Mary John, Yemi Mary now leading, pulled up after 250m with a hamstring problem. Whilst the obvious hope is that it is not too serious it’s too early to say that is the case so we wish Yemi Mary a speedy recovery as she targets the World Junior Championships later this year.
Team managers Gladys Bird and Keith Newton were both pleased with the outcome on the day. The next NAL fixture will be a home one at Woodford on July 2nd